In the fall of 2002, I considered suing the Yale Club of New York.  Like many other misguided young men and women, I had applied to Yale early. My grades were stellar, my looks impeccable, and my extra-curriculars well above par. But my interview at the Yale Club went terribly, and I didn't get in. I kept telling everyone that my deferral was due to the simple fact that the Yale Club - with callous, wanton negligence - had failed to provide me with enough caffeine to ace the interview.  The coffee was practically decaffeinated.  My college adviser offered some sage advice: "Sue them."

I looked into a lawsuit.  I was told that the damages could be enormous: besides the loss of income resulting from my lack of a Yale degree, I was an emotional wreck.  I could no longer work my three-hour a week job as a baby-sitter at my synagogue.  Instead I was forced to edit and re-edit various college applications, at great cost to my mental health as well as to my fiscal well-being.

Unfortunately, my potential lawsuit was swimming against a harsh tide. We were in the midst of a Republican-led backlash against the happy-go-lucky, freewheeling lawsuit era of the 90's ("the Clinton years," as I used to say so derisively).  Courts were increasingly unfriendly to even super valid lawsuits like my own. I kept hearing things about "tort reform" and "trial lawyers" and "attorney fees."  In the end, I decided not to risk it.

So it is with a sense of justice served that I've learned that my hero, right-wing nutjob, frequent WSJ contributor, ex-Supreme Court nominee, and all-around schlimazel Robert Bork, is now suing the Yale Club.

Last June, Bork spoke at an event held at the Yale Club.  While attempting to "mount the dais" to address the audience (the phrase "mount the dais" is used no less than nine times in his brief complaint), Bork fell, striking his leg on the stage and his head on a heat register.  Bork then managed to deliver his entire speech to an undoubtedly captivated audience.

Tragically, as a result of his fall, Bork suffered a hematoma in his lower left leg, which required surgery and physical therapy. According to Bork's suit, filed in federal court in Manhattan, the club is guilty of "gross negligence" for not providing steps and a handrail.  Bork, a former Yale professor who has since moved to more intellectually gratifying digs at the Ave Maria School of Law - a brand-new, obviously prestigious program, located in the heart of rural Michigan and founded by the owner of Domino's Pizza, sure to give Regent University a run for its money as top theocratic diploma-mill - is seeking over a million dollars in damages.

Bork is a well-known and outspoken critic of so-called "frivolous lawsuits," and I fear as I write this that members of the liberal intelligentsia will be tempted to view his case in such a light. Seeking the irony that is their lifeblood, they may say that an old man who tries to mount a dais repeatedly should just give up.

But Bork has suffered greatly: though he was able to mount the dais that night at the Yale Club, eventually mounting the dais high and hard enough that he was able to deliver his entire speech while mounted on said dais, on many occasions since he has been unable to mount the dais, and the amount of money he has foregone in lecture fees from being unable to mount daises is enormous. Bork even required physical therapy to be able to re-mount various daises. He is currently forced to walk with a cane, a mighty impediment for an eighty-year-old man who likes mounting daises.

--JACOB SAVAGE